Lost interest in WTT

[kaikaii]

I used to love watching table tennis matches on YouTube etc. But I've started to feel that international table tennis in general is past its peak. However, there are 3 main trends that I see, all interlinked, that have been happening for a while, but it seems more pronounced after covid:

- I feel there is a lack of personalities in the sport. Perhaps because they come from a different culture, but even people like Ma Long, Zhang Jike, Ding Ning etc seemed way more charismatic and memorable than the current crop of Chinese players. I bought the Zhang Jike blade years ago, because I thought he was epic. I can't imagine doing the same for a Wang Chuqin blade! Again though, maybe that's just because I follow it less now.

- The sport is way more Asian-centric. Europe had a solid group of players in Timo Boll, Samsonov, Michael Maze etc but one by one as they retired no one seemed to replace them. Now it seems more of the competitions are in Asia or the Middle East too. For me personally, I'm just less excited about the Oman Open with 3 people in the crowd, even if I am just watching it online and the prize money attracts all the top players.

- Convergence of styles. Yes, this has been happening for a while. But I feel a few years ago there was the odd chopper, or someone with a unique flair or style like Xu Xin. Or cool serves like Kenta Matsudaira. Now it seems everybody really does play the same.

 

[lodro]

I used to love watching table tennis matches on YouTube etc. But I've started to feel that international table tennis in general is past its peak. However, there are 3 main trends that I see, all interlinked, that have been happening for a while, but it seems more pronounced after covid:

- I feel there is a lack of personalities in the sport. Perhaps because they come from a different culture, but even people like Ma Long, Zhang Jike, Ding Ning etc seemed way more charismatic and memorable than the current crop of Chinese players. I bought the Zhang Jike blade years ago, because I thought he was epic. I can't imagine doing the same for a Wang Chuqin blade! Again though, maybe that's just because I follow it less now.

- The sport is way more Asian-centric. Europe had a solid group of players in Timo Boll, Samsonov, Michael Maze etc but one by one as they retired no one seemed to replace them. Now it seems more of the competitions are in Asia or the Middle East too. For me personally, I'm just less excited about the Oman Open with 3 people in the crowd, even if I am just watching it online and the prize money attracts all the top players.

- Convergence of styles. Yes, this has been happening for a while. But I feel a few years ago there was the odd chopper, or someone with a unique flair or style like Xu Xin. Or cool serves like Kenta Matsudaira. Now it seems everybody really does play the same.

I can understand the way you feel, for me watching top players is still a bit of a novelty.
Everything wears a bit thin after a while.
We still have "personalities " , Harimoto comes to my mind and also little Sha Sha.
My very personal impression of the many Asian players is that they are very much
the same, the individual differences being more subtle. Individuals standing out of the crowd is really not something that is desirable in some Asian cultures.
Actually, you mentioned Wang and I feel he is a warmer personality than many of his fellow players. He does not only do the quick hand slap at the end of a match, I have seen him giving even little one-armed hugs after a game, especially with European players.
I would not mind seeing more smiles and grins and generally more emotion.
We are all human not some TT-robots.

 

[BaRanchik]

I wouldn't call Ma Long charismatic at all. He seems like a shy introvert to me really. He is not a showman and you barely hear him during games. He comes to (try to) win, and that's it really, at least in my eyes. Even Fan Zhendong seems more charismatic to me. Wang Chuqin is quite a character I'd say, but he is not the only one.

I think there are still a whole lot of awesome players to follow, and watching the best of the best playing is amazing every time. I don't really see a problem with the game being dominated by Asians, as long as they are actually better -- and they are. Maybe with time some European player will turn it up a notch and become dangerous to them, like Timo was. For now, I'd say Truls, and the Lebrun brothers are the most fun-to-watch European players, and I am willing to bet the Lebruns will become a lot better in a couple of years too. They all have interesting characters, though the Lebruns are still a little childish. Age will fix that.

Styles are still different among different players. You got the weirdos like Truls and Anders Lind, the perfect Chinese players, choppers like Ruwen Filus and Panagiotis Gionis, and many more.... The more I follow, the more I appreciate each player's unique style and character, even if the difference is subtle, or they do their best to hide their emotions.

My personal complaint is we have no Xu Xin. He was the Ronaldinho of table tennis in my eyes. Not quite the best, but literally an artist.

 

[ttmonster]

I agree to some degree but not completely .. there are still personalities in the sport .as well as varying style of play ...

Truls Moregardh
Mima Ito
The lebrun brothers
Simon Gauzy
Aruna Quadri
Harimoto
Anders Lind

 

[NextLevel]

Table tennis is terribly marketed. Many amateurs have shown ITTF what to do (zeio, apacible, ponfgugraahopper, MLFM, Bobrow etc.) but maybe the money isn't there, but they keep acting like they don't have a clue. They need to make the narratives underlying table tennis in Asia accessible in English and the narratives in the reverse direction as well, and then throw money behind giving the narratives stakes.

But maybe TT is just too dumb a sport to excite anyone...

 

[lodro]

But maybe TT is just too dumb a sport to excite anyone...

Exactly my words to one of my club mates the other night.
I said :" Imagine some aliens are watching two grown men pushing a little white ball
around a table, they surely must be thinking """WHAT THE FU#$&*** """

 

[blahness]

Main thing for me is the terrible crap camera angle. The side "umpire" view is just plain nonsense and should be banned from table tennis. Idk whoever had this stupid idea and pitched it to WTT...

 

[ttmonster]

Main thing for me is the terrible crap camera angle. The side "umpire" view is just plain nonsense and should be banned from table tennis. Idk whoever had this stupid idea and pitched it to WTT...

Don't you think they are trying to save money by not having as many cameras ?

 

[WingTT]

My personal complaint is we have no Xu Xin. He was the Ronaldinho of table tennis in my eyes. Not quite the best, but literally an artist.

Unfortunately due to the 40+ plastic ball you will probably never see the kind of spin artistic play from any Chinese team player again as that is not a viable style anymore. The Chinese coaches even tried to make Xu Xin change his style of play but to no avail. The new style of table tennis is basically brute slug fest. You can thank ITTF and the corrupt Adham Sharara for this shit.

 

[piligrim]

Don't you think they are trying to save money by not having as many cameras ?

It doesn't explain why they have side camera view on other events

 

[Metaxa]

I used to love watching table tennis matches on YouTube etc. But I've started to feel that international table tennis in general is past its peak. However, there are 3 main trends that I see, all interlinked, that have been happening for a while, but it seems more pronounced after covid:

- I feel there is a lack of personalities in the sport. Perhaps because they come from a different culture, but even people like Ma Long, Zhang Jike, Ding Ning etc seemed way more charismatic and memorable than the current crop of Chinese players. I bought the Zhang Jike blade years ago, because I thought he was epic. I can't imagine doing the same for a Wang Chuqin blade! Again though, maybe that's just because I follow it less now.

- The sport is way more Asian-centric. Europe had a solid group of players in Timo Boll, Samsonov, Michael Maze etc but one by one as they retired no one seemed to replace them. Now it seems more of the competitions are in Asia or the Middle East too. For me personally, I'm just less excited about the Oman Open with 3 people in the crowd, even if I am just watching it online and the prize money attracts all the top players.

- Convergence of styles. Yes, this has been happening for a while. But I feel a few years ago there was the odd chopper, or someone with a unique flair or style like Xu Xin. Or cool serves like Kenta Matsudaira. Now it seems everybody really does play the same.

You get stuck in nostalgia!

 

[latej]

Probably minority view: For me the game develops, and forces certain areas, especially body movements, stroke mechanics to be more efficient and effective. It's like the development prunes the inefficiencies away, because they can't survive the competition. The movements and strokes are getting better, more optimal, in the sense of how animal movement is optimal. And I like to watch these more than the past. Wang Chuqin is the personification of it for me, having his blade would be very great! So, for me its actually one of the few in-time-developments, which I see positively ;-)

 

[SFF_lib]

Thanks to the streaming service, we can watch matches at home for free. In fact you can see much more details on your screen than watching in the arena. But nothing beats the excitement live in the arena.

I imagine a way to attract crowds in arena:

1. Switching back to 38mm
2. Slightly heavier 38mm ball
3. Bigger table

1+2 allows the ball to travel further and faster, and spin more. A bigger table would allow audiences to see better action.

What do you guys think?

 

[latej]

What do you guys think?

Cheers and bow @SFF_lib, these are good intentions, but as for me, I'd say: let's do no more changes please for at least 30 years. ;-)

 

[SFF_lib]

I used to love watching table tennis matches on YouTube etc. But I've started to feel that international table tennis in general is past its peak. However, there are 3 main trends that I see, all interlinked, that have been happening for a while, but it seems more pronounced after covid:

- I feel there is a lack of personalities in the sport. Perhaps because they come from a different culture, but even people like Ma Long, Zhang Jike, Ding Ning etc seemed way more charismatic and memorable than the current crop of Chinese players. I bought the Zhang Jike blade years ago, because I thought he was epic. I can't imagine doing the same for a Wang Chuqin blade! Again though, maybe that's just because I follow it less now.

- The sport is way more Asian-centric. Europe had a solid group of players in Timo Boll, Samsonov, Michael Maze etc but one by one as they retired no one seemed to replace them. Now it seems more of the competitions are in Asia or the Middle East too. For me personally, I'm just less excited about the Oman Open with 3 people in the crowd, even if I am just watching it online and the prize money attracts all the top players.

- Convergence of styles. Yes, this has been happening for a while. But I feel a few years ago there was the odd chopper, or someone with a unique flair or style like Xu Xin. Or cool serves like Kenta Matsudaira. Now it seems everybody really does play the same.

I agree

Cheers and bow @SFF_lib, these are good intentions, but as for me, I'd say: let's do no more changes please for at least 30 years. ;-)

I don’t like the changes too.

Booster ban was alright.

But going from 38mm -> 40mm -> 40+ -> ABS ball kills the game

 

[blahness]

Unfortunately due to the 40+ plastic ball you will probably never see the kind of spin artistic play from any Chinese team player again as that is not a viable style anymore. The Chinese coaches even tried to make Xu Xin change his style of play but to no avail. The new style of table tennis is basically brute slug fest. You can thank ITTF and the corrupt Adham Sharara for this shit.

Imo Fan Zhendong has very good feeling on the chop, he has won an amazingly high percentage of points when he actually chops the ball lol (for an all out attacker like him).

But in general, players are using a lot of new strokes (chiquita, strawberry) which have their own spin and placement variations, and even the simple looking serves, push and flicks have significant spin variations which can be quite invisible to the audience because they also have to deceive the opponent, and the camera is too far away to capture a lot of these details.

 

[Kopp]

- The sport is way more Asian-centric. ..

It is more friendly to Asians in general. IDK.

 

[Gtsnake]

You do realize why they changed to the larger ball??? It's supposed to make it easier for spectators to see the ball in hopes of attracting a wider audience. There wasn't anyone watching TT so ITTF had nothing to lose. I don't know the statistics before/after to know if the change helped or not.

As for the camera angle I'm guessing it's so the sponsors can be easily seen. That part I don't agree with. If you emphasize sponsors over the game action there's no point in playing the game then.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

You do realize why they changed to the larger ball??? It's supposed to make it easier for spectators to see the ball in hopes of attracting a wider audience. There wasn't anyone watching TT so ITTF had nothing to lose. I don't know the statistics before/after to know if the change helped or not.

As for the camera angle I'm guessing it's so the sponsors can be easily seen. That part I don't agree with. If you emphasize sponsors over the game action there's no point in playing the game then.

TT has zero spectators in 90% of the countries in the world, in 38mm era 40mm era and even now.
during a tournament, the tournament players who isn't playing and sitting in the spectator spot is not a spectator.

and then TV audience was on a decline - including in China.
Hence so much changes required from previous super leagues, ie to shorten the match time to around 90 mins, by introducing first to 7 points or 3 game matches.

Truth is, TT is dying as it is just too technical to master and not enjoyable for those who doesn't understand the technicality of the game.

ITTF made rule changes with IOC and audience in mind (IOC has sustainability goals, where speed glue had to go, and then wood is next). Audience with ball size, but that results in more injuries increase percentage than audience increase percentage in my opinion.

In junior level, there is so much more injuries too.

 

[pgpg]

You do realize why they changed to the larger ball??? It's supposed to make it easier for spectators to see the ball in hopes of attracting a wider audience. There wasn't anyone watching TT so ITTF had nothing to lose. I don't know the statistics before/after to know if the change helped or not.

As for the camera angle I'm guessing it's so the sponsors can be easily seen. That part I don't agree with. If you emphasize sponsors over the game action there's no point in playing the game then.

I think 5% increase in ball size does nothing for spectators, especially the TV/Internet ones. Advances in broadcast TV quality were much more impactful, IMHO. (SD-> HD->4K...)